Lee Ann Roripaugh's first collection of poetry, which was selected by writer Ishmael Reed as one of five manuscripts published in 1999 through the National Poetry Series competition. The central section of the book is an interconnected series of dramatic monologues written in the voices of various Japanese Americans incarcerated at the
Heart Mountain
camp.

Author's Background

The child of a Japanese immigrant mother and a father who was Poet Laureate of Wyoming from 1995-2002, Roripaugh was born in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1965. She received a B.M in piano performance, a M.M in music and an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University.

She is a Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of South Dakota. She also serves as editor-in-chief of "South Dakota Review.
In 2015, she was appointed as Poet Laureate of South Dakota.

Themes

Roripaugh organizes the collection in three parts. Many of the poems in the first section focus on being an outsider: the poet's Japanese mother who marries an American soldier and maintains cultural practices—dancing in geta (elevated Japanese wooden sandals) and eating nori (dried seaweed)—that set her apart from her rural Wyoming neighbors, the poet as a girl taunted by classmates for her racial difference, atom bomb survivors visiting the U.S. for reconstructive surgeries.

The second section, "Heart Mountain, 1943," is a long poem consisting of inter-related interior monologues in the voices of the different camp prisoners. Each monologue bears the name of the speaker. The diverse array of perspectives in "Heart Mountain, 1943" include an
Issei
mother whose son serves with
U.S. Military Intelligence
; a fisherman from
Terminal Island
who discovers an abandoned baby in a coal bin; a teenage Nisei writing to her boyfriend who the government transferred to the "
Tule Lake Segregation Center
" for answering the
loyalty questions
negatively; that same young man explaining his anger over the humiliation Japanese Americans experienced, crystallized in his mind by his father being forced to sell a prized black Packard sedan just before incarceration; and a
Nisei
nurse describing some of her patients—a mess hall worker whose face is badly burned in an accident, and an Issei man who arrives at the hospital with a fork stuck in one of his eyes, the result of an argument with another incarceree.

The details in "Heart Mountain, 1943" reveal the hardships of daily life in the camp (unrelenting dust, waiting in long mess hall and bathroom lines) and political divisions (exemplified by two brothers, one fighting in the
442nd Regimental Combat Team
and the other sent to the Tule Lake camp because he answered "no" to the loyalty questions). Some of the poems address taboo topics, like premarital sex and violence.

The final section of collection features poems exploring Japanese myths, such as the spirit of an iris embodied as a woman, heavenly lovers separated by the Milky Way, and a ghostly woman who returns to her earthly love.

Reviews

Tseng, Jennifer.
Amerasia Journal
26.3 (Winter 2000): 210–15. ["The result is a stunning display of diversity inside what appears at first to be a relatively homogeneous group. Roripaugh exploits the form to its explosive potential by tracing and retracing the same story again and again, from more than one point of view, revealing the complexities of camp life and of life in general." (referring to the monologues that constitute "Heart Mountain, 1943")]

Publisher's Weekly
, May 31, 1999, 88. ["Roripaugh manages to bring a history she never experienced through her own past, to her present. . . . The book's drive towards clarity and strength is often moving."]

Learn more in the Densho Encyclopedia, a free on-line resource covering the key concepts, people, events, and organizations that played a role in the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Media Type

Interest Level

Genre

Availability

Free On Web

Teacher Guide

Learn more in the Densho Encyclopedia, a free on-line resource covering the key concepts, people, events, and organizations that played a role in the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Useful Links

The Resource Guide to Media on the Japanese American Removal and Incarceration is a free project of Densho. Our mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished. We offer these irreplaceable firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images and teacher resources, to explore principles of democracy, and promote equal justice for all.